Even Stranger Things Once Happened in a Small Town in Ireland

Janson Media today announced the release to worldwide broadcast, VOD and non-theatrical markets of the feature-length documentary film, Strange Occurrences in a Small Irish Village. The film premiered in theaters in Ireland in August 2016, and has since been broadcast on RTE in Ireland and screened inflight aboard Aer Lingus airlines.

In the village, we meet people with compelling stories - invalids seeking cures; the eight sibling owners of rival religious merchandise shops; a woman relieved of multiple sclerosis during a 1970s pilgrimage; feisty Mildred, advocate for gender parity for the shrine's handmaids; and the staff of the Knock Marriage Bureau, the matchmakers behind one thousand marriages and counting. Father Richard has a vision of his own - to bring Knock into the twenty-first century. The charismatic, outward-looking Parish Priest is on a mission to entice new transatlantic visitors via Knock Airport.

With references to "the scandals", falling church attendances, and the modernization of the shrine and the village itself, Strange Occurrences in a Small Irish Village (1 x 90' and 1 x 60') presents a timely reflection on the position of the Catholic Church in the 21st century. For the faithful it celebrates a beacon of spiritual hope; for skeptics it opens an enticing window on an anachronistic but thriving world.

The film was produced by Rachel Lysaght & Lindsay Campbell for Underground Films of Dublin, and directed by Aoife Kelleher.

Director Kelleher's statement:

“The story itself is so fantastic that you completely want to get to the bottom of it. You want to know what it is that they saw, how it was spoken about at the time. There is something fascinating about a story like that, where it came from, how it was passed on and how its significance changes over time. I suppose that was really the crux of it for me - learning about the story and then how that story manifests itself in the form of a village - which really exists because of this one story."

“It’s very important that every generation interrogate the stories that are passed down to them and look at them afresh and decide for themselves whether they should be embraced and preserved or discarded. In a way that’s what this film is about, it’s very observational, so we present the story and the realities that have sprung from that story, with a view to an audience learning about it again and deciding for themselves how they feel about it.”

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